Hi,
I am trying to achieve a pure white background for portraits. I have white sheets but will probably use white seamless paper. The background always turn opague after I adjust the white settings on the computer.
I have one alien bee strobe and a reflector. Are these two possible to achieve the pure white background?
...two with softboxes or umbrellas would be better if you want to have an even lite background. Overexpose the background by up to two stops and you will be all set.
You will need a background light. FIrst step is to meter the light on your subject and set your exposure properly. Then meter the light on your background and set it to 3 to 4 stops higher then the subject lighting. This should give you a perfect white background with no texture. If you make it more then 4 stops you run the risk of flare and loss of contrast on your subject.
It is a common mistake to put the subject close to a white background and almost always results in a bad picture.
Separate the subject as much as you can from the white background. So the spill doesnt create a white "rim" effect which makes it tough to get some separation of the subject from background and also the hair is messed up. Good images against white almost always require that the edges of the subject at least on one side be dark creating some contrast.
Gecko, you connect 1 light to your camera via sync cord, the second has a slave tripper so it fires when it sees your first light fire. no need to physically connect the second light to your camera.
i will try that softbox as backlight and reflector as main light. but, where does the softbox go? its too big to be directly behind the subject. Does it go on the side and pointing at the background and the reflector is to the side of the camera?
For more control I would use 2 lights with barndoors to control spill to get an even background. Placed on each side and behind the subject. Instead of barndoors you can use a screen.
You can resort to channels in Photoshop if it doesn't get white enough. Not being too good myself at getting the ratios right I have to do that a lot
I have limited experience myself but it is my understanding that the background only needs to be about half a stop brighter than the subject to be shown as perfectly white. Any more and you get a spill messing up the edges of the subject. Some people however seen to believe that 1-2 stops above is their preferred choice. I’ve never heard 3-4 stops over mentioned before.
A good tip is to turn off the main light and shoot a test shot with just the background lights on. The subject should be a perfect silhouette and you will see if there is any spill.
Shooting with just one light as the background and reflectors as the main light source at the front works well, although you obviously need quite a big softbox.
This is my first try at high-key. I just got my first lights last week, and to make this tougher i have no meter yet and this is a self protrait...i felt like a frog hppin up and down
The BG is simply a white sheet with one strobe pointed at it, i have one with a SB on me right and a silver reflector on my right. The BG is about 5 or 6 feet behind me. the BG strobe is off to one side as I don'tahve a short enough stand to get it behind me and out of view.
